A typical wireless network usually comprises at least one wireless access point (WAP) through which stations can connect to a wireless network. A common wireless network is a Wi-Fi network, which is a non-technical description that is generally correlated with the IEEE 802.11 standards, as well as Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and WPA2 security standards, and the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) standard, (Wi-Fi certification currently requires conformance with these standards.) A wireless network can include a wireless local area network (WLAN) or a network of some other size.
In a simple wireless network deployment, a WAP is responsible for relaying information between two stations (STA). This can consume twice the bandwidth as directly sending information from a first STA to a second STA due to the fact that transmission one STA to AP and AP to second STA takes two time slots. Even though there are mechanisms to avoid this in order to save airtime bandwidth, there may be benefits of relaying the information by AP to extend the range between two stations that are far apart. In a sense, the AP can become a range extender or repeater for them.
If every STA goes through an AP to communication with other STAB, it requires twice the airtime or throughput will be halved. For example, a STA can be located next to a broadband access connection, such as a digital subscriber line (DSL), to provide external communication, while an AP is centrally located to have the most coverage. In a simple configuration like this, to have an external broadband connection, other STAs must go through the AP to reach the STA next to the broadband AP. This will reduce throughput of the system by half. Therefore, the selection of the location of the AP is a delicate act to maximize the throughput within a home network.
The foregoing examples of the related art are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.